I’m reading this article where Michael Jordan is asked if he can name the greatest dunk of his career. Keep in mind that in spite of the two fake retirements, Michael Jordan played in over 1,000 games over 13 NBA seasons, which is the equivalent of 41,000 minutes or 683 hours and is arguably the most prolific scorer in his generation. That’s a whole lot of basketball played, a massive number of points scored, and most definitely a whole lot of dunks thrown down. You’d have to think ol’ MJ would have to stop and think for a moment about what his greatest dunk was.
Nope. Apparently, MJ has thought about it a lot throughout his life, so he has an answer prepared for when there is any time people want to know what he thinks his greatest dunk was.
He zeroes right back to 1991 in the Eastern Conference finals or semi-finals, where it was the Bulls and Knicks, and declares this particular dunk, the greatest dunk in his entire career.
The dunk was on Patrick Ewing, who has never been a stranger to the concept of getting dunked on, but the bottom line is that throughout his entire basketball career, nobody has tormented him and continues to torment him like Michael Jordan does. There’s not even appropriate words to describe it; Patrick Ewing is Michael Jordan’s bitch; Michael Jordan owns Patrick Ewing.
The subject is a serious question; has there ever been a case of one guy owning another guy as long as Jordan has owned Ewing?
Sure, there have been mini-instances, of like Tom Brady owning Peyton Manning for a year or three, the way Andruw Jones ate Jason Marquis’ lunch for almost an entire decade. But compare it to the tumultuous dance that MJ has been doing around Patrick Ewing – it’s safe to say that Michael Jordan has owned Patrick Ewing for nearly four decades.
It started in 1982, when Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown squad ran into UNC, who had this freshman named Michael Jordan on it. With 12 seconds left in the game, with Georgetown up by one, Michael Jordan would calmly sink the go-ahead bucket for the first career instance cockblocking Patrick Ewing, denying him from being able to declare himself a collegiate National Champion.
Ewing would eventually get his National Championship a year later, but it was not over Michael Jordan, so nobody really cared.
Patrick Ewing would go pro in 1985, being drafted by the New York Knicks, a year after Michael Jordan had already joined the Chicago Bulls. Throughout their respective careers, Michael Jordan would go on to win six NBA Championships for the Bulls, while Patrick Ewing would win zero.
Four times in the playoffs, did Ewing’s Knicks run into Jordan’s Bulls, and each time, Ewing emerged from these series as the loser. Some in more dramatic fashion than others, but the results were the same. Every single one of those years, MJ and the Bulls would go on to win the NBA Championship after dispatching of Patrick Ewing.
Patrick Ewing beat the Bulls only once in the playoffs, in 1995, but that was also the year where MJ was suspended retired for the first time, so he wasn’t even present for it. It’s worth noting that in the absence of Jordan, Ewing still made sure to get humiliated, by getting completely posterized when he got dunked on and practically teabagged by Scottie Pippen.
And then the fourth time Ewing got kicked to the curb by Jordan was the first full year after Jordan’s suspension retirement comeback. Which kind of makes it worse, because Ewing had to think that his championship door was open with MJ gone, but then he comes back and slams it shut in his face all over again.
The ownage didn’t end after both of their respective active careers actually concluded. MJ went into the world of ownership and management of basketball teams, tanking the Wizards before getting his feet in the door with the Charlotte Bobcats. Who really knows what Ewing did for the first few years of his retirement, but eventually he wanted to get into the managerial game himself, and it was none other than his old adversary MJ, who opened the door for him to get his feet wet.
It was almost like a cruel ploy to resume ownage of his bitch.
Jordan, being a terrible basketball executive, could not really manage to get the Bobcats to improve. But because he’s MJ, it’s not like anyone’s going to point the finger at him, so they point their finger out at someone who can be a sacrificial scapegoat – the head coach. So with the head coach position vacant, Patrick Ewing thinks to himself, “Man, this is a perfect opportunity to segue all of my basketball knowledge into a coaching career,” so he throws his name into the hat.
In the end, who really knows how many names were thrown into the hat, and how many names were rejected. Regardless of what the number actually was, none of them were made public except for Patrick Ewing, whom was publicly made into MJ’s bitch once again, when news came out that MJ had basically personally told Patrick Ewing NO, to a potential as the Bobcats’ head coach.
Apparently, Ewing, at the time I’m writing this has actually head coached a handful of games, but the fact of the matter is that he’s still an assistant coach, currently filling in for whomever, regardless of the circumstances. In a way, this is almost another cruel ploy by MJ to let Ewing enjoy getting to have the helm of a team, before he will unceremoniously be replaced by a sockpuppet coach of MJ’s hand selection like he did with Doug Collins and the Wizards.
This is ownage that will inevitably happen, eventually, if not soon, I predict.
Which brings us back to today, 32 years after MJ broke PatricK Ewing’s heart for the first time, Jordan telling the world that out of all the thousands and thousands of dunks he’s slammed down throughout his career, over guys like Malone, Barkley, Bird, and giants and behemoths like Mutombo, Shawn Bradley and Greg Ostertag, that none of them were as gratifying or as great as one particular dunk on him.
32 years later, Jordan is still owning Ewing.
When will the madness end?
